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THE BLIND MAN AT THE 
WINDOW AND OTHER POEMS 



THE BLIND MAN 
AT THE WINDOW 



AND OTHER POEMS 



By 

STARK YOUNG 




THE GRAFTON PRESS 

NEW YORK MCMVI 



LIBRARY of C0NQRES3 

Two Copies Received 

DEC 17 1906 

^C«pyrlffht Entry . 
CLASS ^ XXc, No, 
COPY B. 



T5 3^^7 



Copyright, 1906 
By Stark Young 



Co 

DAVID HORACE BISHOP 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Song 9 

Spring Song 9 

Song 10 

Song 11 

Whippoorwill 12 

The Little Garden 13 

Song 13 

Reaper's Song 14 

Sunset Song 15 

Orpheus 15 

Hamlet 20 

Sleep 21 

Last Letter 21 

Sonnet 22 

Last Leaves 23 

Ode in Mississippi's Troubled Hour .... 23 

Swallows 28 

To A Mouse 29 

Death and the Ghost 30 

The Seekers 32 

To Chopin. His Prelude in C Minor .... 35 

Written at my Mother's Grave 37 

Sonnet 39 

Sonnet 39 

The Blind Man at the Window 40 

Morning — Joy 40 

Evening — Contemplation 40 

AbNER the NaZARENE, to C^SAR PlINIUS CiECILIUS 

Secundus, Propr^tor of Pontus 42 

The Dead Shore 45 

MooNRisE 48 

To THE Night-Wind 48 

7 



8 CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Nocturne 49 

Rain at Night 50 

The Brooklyn Ferry 51 

To THE Elizabethans 52 

To Spenser 53 

The Classic Soul 53 

Written after Seeing Loie Fuller Dance ... 54 

The Ballad of my Lady Jehanne 54 

Serenade 55 

Ballad of the Round Table 56 

The Ballad of the Bells of Boscastle .... 57 

To A Little Blue-Flower in Cornwall .... 58 
Lines Written at Tintagel in King Arthur's 

Country 61 

Song 65 

Night and Love 65 

The Coming of Love 66 

Sonnet 66 

Love and Sleep 67 

Love and Ambition 67 

On Sending a Coverlid 68 

Sonnet 68 

The Mother 68 

The Bairn 69 

Triolet 70 

Sonnet 70 

Unfaithfulness 71 

The Return 72 

Song 75 

GORDIA 75 

To my Sister 82 

To Thorne 83 

Sonnets 83 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE 
WINDOW 

Song 

The birds troop black across the sky, 
Their wings are many, the sky is one, 
The little lamps come twinkling out 
After the lordly sun. 

The yellow lights lie on the hill, 
The lights are gone, the hill doth bide, 
O love, the fancies in my heart 
Go roaming far and wide. 

And golden dreams come gleaming by, 
The dreams are many, my heart is one. 
The hill is dark, but love brings light 
After the day is done. 

Spring Song 

Come every lad and lass to sing 

Upon my right, upon my left, 

It bloweth now the early spring, 

The distant skyline it is cleft 

With tender green, come sing, oh, sing! 

Blue, blue the waters that do part 
The banks that wind so secretly. 
Where Cardinal with burning heart 
Will mourn him for Anemone. 



o THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

O Cardinal, wilt thou not know 
She waited long and since is dead, 
Waited long for thee and said, 
"He Cometh not and Spring doth go." 

But life from us doth also pass, 

Come sing with me, come, oh, heigho. 

Come every lad and every lass, 

The year goes fast, the year goes slow, 

And winter follows flowering. 

And up and down and to and fro. 

Come sing with me the lusty spring! 

II 

Blue is the sky and white clouds drift, 
And violet-caps from leaves upstart, 
The peach blossoms they blow, sweetheart, 
The petals faint and fall and sift 
Upon the wind and everywhere. 
But on thy cheek blows yet more fair 
The season's rose, thy lashes lift 
From eyes of blue, but no cloud there. 
And Spring it sitteth on thy hair. 

Ah, love, a morrow and they go, 
For rose from petals it doth die. 
But where the wind that e'er will blow 
Such blossoms back into the sky .? 
Then wilt thou not my true love be 
While spring is yet with thee and me .? 

Song 

There is a garden in my heart. 

My soul hath part, and thou hast part, 

My soul and thou and I. 

And marigold and columbine 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW ii 

Grow plenteous and intertwine 

With rosemary and hollyhocks, 

And heart's-ease, rue, and scarlet phlox, 

And all the old-time flowers blow 

Within this garden, and I know 

Each violet and every rose. 

Finding therein a sweet repose. 

My soul and thou and I. 

Song 

White rain and green fields bring 

Lost words and memories. 

Many a half-forgotten thing. 

And heart for heart a-hungered cries, 

And the old loves come again 

Back with the spring. 

The winter chills and damps depart, 
And warm the tender winds caress, 
And stir within the thoughtless heart 
Reminders of old tenderness. 
And ties long broken bind again. 

Oh, sweet to watch the garden blow. 
And orchards cloud the upland places, 
Soft the young days come and go. 
And the long line of bygone faces 
Draws from the void of absence again. 

Oh, sweet and sad the days will pass. 
And barren winter claim his own. 
Our lives are shadows on the grass, 
O friend, O love, where thou art gone. 
Speak to me from the void again, 
In the sad spring. 



12 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Whippoorwill 

Lo, again there in the wood 
And shadows of leaves he sings. 
And out of his secret covert 
The night air softly brings 
His long wail, under the hill, 
"Whippoorwill!" 

The stream it runneth by 

a\nd murmurs, sing whippoorwill! 

And from the dusk of the grass 

It flashes and glitters, and still 

The golden song and the stream 

Echoing^ as in a dream, — 

Whippoorwill. 

And risen above the hill 

To travel the wide heaven 

The fair round moon, and again 

The bird, and haply even 

The queen moon hearkens his singing 

To her silver plain upwinging. 

Whippoorwill, whippoorwill. 

Under the hill. 

Methinketh where 
Thou leanest on thy ledge 
Haply the moon looketh fair 
From this same heaven and shineth 
On the braids of thy pale hair. 
Ah, lady, from thy heaven, 
Takest no thought of me 
Who lift my song up here ? 
But time and the stream do flee. 
And never long wilt hear the song 
Under the summer hill, 
Wliippoorwill, whippoorwill. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 13 

The Little Garden 

If you were here with me I think 
In this old-fashioned place, 
They all would say that here for us 
There were not ample space. 

But here I trow is all we need, 
This little garden old. 
With hollyhocks and trumpet vine. 
And many a story told 

Of knights that loved, and ghosts that walked 

Within this high wall's close, 

And shades of many a dim romance 

And many a faded rose. 

I see the twilight settling down. 

The smells grow faint, night-sounds upstart, 

I have the peace your presence gives, 

I have your singing in my heart. 

The spring lags here and waits for you, 
Come, and who knows how long. 
How many a summer we may have. 
How many an evening song ^ 

How many a spring may come and go ? 
But ere this spring hath blown 
Come be my love while we may have 
This garden all our own. 

Song 

Blue sky and golden tree 
And birds all singing merrily. 
Blue sky and laughing wind. 
Old winter lags behind. 



4 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

My lady with her yellow robe 
Goes with her bright hair flying, 
And follow I with my good lute 
And sing the season's dying. 

Gray sky and naked tree, 

And shadows dim on snowy lea, 

Black sky and icy wood, 

Sweet autumn's in her shroud. 

My lady with her yellow hair 

Is in her dark grave lying, 

And I'll go weep and tune my lute 

To the winter wind's drear crying. 

Reaper's Song 

The sunlight breaks across the waste, 
And lights the purple-shadowed fen. 
Oho, my reapers, reapers, wake, 
And swing the scythe with me again! 

What though to merchants be the gain, 
And labour starve to fatten trade. 
To richen us the golden sheaves 
And music of the clanging blade. 

What though the money make the man. 
And conscience knuckle in to wrong. 
To us the majesty of toil. 
And God within the sunrise song. 

So up, my reapers, with the sun, 
And follow me across the fen. 
Oho, my reapers, reapers wake. 
And swing the scythe with me again! 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 15 



Sunset Song 

The woodlands wide in darkling purples lie, 

The sun's last splendours faint across the sky, 

And fallows in the vesper mists are lying, 

And from the brooding world the swallows flying 

Far out beyond the outer dark are crying. 

The tinkle of the sheep-bells gathers blown 

Up from the Hstening lowlands overgrown 

With ancient yellow sedge; above, 

A silence and the strange half-hearted birth 

Of stars; below, the mystery of Earth, 

And the loneliness of this time-weary world — 

What dost thou seek ? Nay, turn thee back. 

Once a soul died for lack 

Of understanding and of love. 

Orpheus 

At evening he came, Orpheus, pale with grief, 

Into the fields, and saw the fading hills 

On one hand, and on one saw Hesperus, 

Sweet star of home, slope to the wine-hued sea. 

Once had he sung such godlike harmonies 

As set each stone and every tree and herb 

To leave their rooted spots for rhythmic bliss, 

And made the air all jocund with his mirth. 

But late his song hath changed since thou wert dead. 

Since thou wert dead and lost, Eurydice! 

Now from the brakes the nightingale took up 

Her tragic plaint of passionate mischance, 

And in the dusk the never-resting tide 

Sobbed on the shore. Likewise young Orpheus 

Made his moan, and sang to his sad heart. 

And as he sang his voice, among the strings 

Wandering, wed with the notes, as when some bird 

Mingles his carol with a fountain's fall. 



i6 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Sweet, sweet, sweet, oh, piercing sweet! 

The night bird left her chaunt, and the virgin air 

Yielded her all unto such ravishment. 

The timid deer halted and stood, wide-eyed. 

At the wood's edge, tiger and ounce, 

And mountain pards came beautiful and swift 

To hear him singing in the starry night. 

Nor had the wood deaf ears unto his notes. 

Poppies awaked and frail anemone 

For trembling shook her petals all adown. 

And crocus buds, as may have maidens' hearts, 

Burst ere their time for ecstasy of woe. 

Young bays and laurels shed their dew, trees sighed, 

And, answering, the wind among the pines 

Shuddered and moaned. Far-off, sea-voices called, 

And from the waves the shadowy seafolk rose 

Beating their breasts that grief should be so sweet. 

So roamed he about Taenarus, nigh the place 

Whereby the dead depart the light of sun. 

Within he heard, muffled as through wool. 

Noise of despair, smiting of hands and cries. 

And knew that love and loss brought him to death. 

The entrance darkened to his mortal sight. 

Ah, never yet, alas, hath man from there 

Brought word of what might fall, what terrors" wait 

To shatter our undying element! j^J 

"The Olympian Might doth send this sorrow on us. 

And breaks us even as a mountain reed. 

Crushed by a rock shook idly from the summit!" 

So broke his song as one that hath his heart 

Gripping his throat; and he cried, "Hearken, O Gods! 

Darkness and calling sea surround me here! 

Look on me brought to death and hell by love! 

Oh, soften to some pity! ^. I know not where 

I go, nor what may come. Shuddering dreams. 

Dim shapes and phantasms horrible! I do 

Forget mine ancient fears and mortuary dread, 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 17 

Seeing my soul is seared to flame with love. 

Whether I die or hve I care not. Life 

Without her is death, and by her death were Hfe. 

Eurydice, thou all of my dead life! 

I will go down into the regions of the dead, 

And seek if haply I may find her shade 

Amid the pallid throng. Yet will I try 

What charms belong to love and harmony 

Even in the cold ear of death. So struck 

And sang, and entered hell, passed where 

Lay Cerberus, curlike, whining at the strains, 

By Acheron with its clamorous banks, by Chaos 

And Phlegethon, Cocytus, and the Stygian Marsh, 

Heard shrieks of the damned in Tartarus, the lash 

Of whips, curses and cries, and underneath. 

The hoarse rivers of hell rumbling in gloom. 

And far beyond he saw the fields of death. 

And in the purple light the blessed seats. 

With forms there walking amid asphodels. 

And flowers pale as lilies at the dawn, 

Along the gentle river of forgetfulness. 

Whereon he came before the throne of Dis. 

There by her dusky spouse and garbed alike. 

In sable robe and burning anadem, 

Persephone, the Queen of Hades, sat, 

Like a fair flower blown into some darksome pit. 

Then Plutus spake, huge thunder tones 

Like mutterings underground of hidden force: 

"O man, who art thou, say, thus entered. 

That letst not light pass through thee as the rest. 

But castest shadow as thou living wert ?" 

At this the damned left off their wail and neared, 

The happy souls came with their white-bound brows, 

Seeking the wherefore of his coming. 

Whether driven by wandering over seas. 

Or some god's word, or bitter fortuning. 

That he should come unto the sunless realm. . , 



1 8 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Then somewhat thus he spake, alas, all words 

Were faded pictures of that fabric rich : 

"One lost between the strands of life and death. 

Flesh as thou sayst, but dead in soul. Wouldst thou 

Back from the night give me Eurydice! 

A trembling runs through all my limbs 

To speak her name. Haply thou hearst me call, 

Eurydice, O Eurydice! 

But give her back to me, thou God, and there 

Is that divine in me will hymn thy fame 

And thee through all the worlds of time; for love 

Is concrete with the soul, and in it bides 

Even after death. Love richens earth's dull life. 

And even here doth make these souls though blest 

Long ever to return to the slow flesh. 

We are blurred imprints of some Deity, 

Dim patterns of a higher line and form. 

Some Spirit through the members of the world, 

That moves wide heaven, and earth, and the marble sea. 

And lends a fire unto the seed of things 

That they may perish not. And in our souls 

This fire ethereal is love of Man and Him. 

Eurydice, O Eurydice! 

Ay, many a day upon the hills I strove 

To sing thy soul back to its cerements! 

Once in a dream she came and touched my brow. 

Oh, act more sad and sweet than that lost kiss 

That Cypris unto dying Adonis gave. 

Haply my words are vain to thee, a God; 

Stern lookst thou, as to fail my sense. Ay, suns 

Know not the struggle of brief candle flames! 

I know not if they be, I only know 

That I am frail, and grief more sharp than death! 

Canst thou not hear me call among the dead ? 

Eurydice, O Eurydice!" 

As if his matter were too large for human 

Utterance he ceased, and when he ceased 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 19 

Persephone had risen. A tear fell down 

Upon her breast. "O Orpheus, thou knowest 

The secret of the world, the soul of Law, 

The power and the might, of Force the top 

And pinnacle." Thus spake the Queen of Dis, 

Hearing the moan he made. But Plutus sat, 

Seeming apart, and on his gloomy brow 

The cloud of the god's remoteness. Thus he spake: 

*'How this may be I know not that thou sayest. 

Such matter were too weak for ears immortal. 

But I do own the sweetness of thy song. 

And she doth brood, my queen, Persephone. 

And through these wretched shades a flame is sent, 

Long fallen to ashes, of their earthly loves. 

As when my brother Zeus his lightning stirs 

Within the barren air. And at my feet 

The Fates forget to measure life and death. 

It may be that this love, as she hath said, 

Is of all Law the soul, of Force the top, 

I know it not. But I do feel a power 

I have not felt before. A Strength that moves 

The very bowels of hell unto its will. 

And I, a god, am rendered powerless. 

Go then, and she shall follow thee behind 

Unto thy hearth. But temper thy passion yet. 

The fruit of great love should be strength. Therefore 

Look thou not backward when she followeth. 

But keep thine eye fixed to thy purpose hence. 

Or else this love, this tower of thy strength. 

For all the wonders it hath worked in hell. 

Will fall by its own weight. For know thou well 

Even love hath bounds, and to the immortal gods 

The bounds of temperance are the seat of law.*' 

And Orpheus sang no more, but went. And as 

He went he heard her voice, Persephone, 

That called to him and said: "O Orpheus, 

So may the torch that burneth in thy soul 



20 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Find stuff within thy purpose' hold to Hght 
Thee till thou comest to the Eternal Sun." 
And in her voice were tears and loneliness 
For human lips there in her mother's land. 
He leading, with the passion of his strings, 
Eurydice amid the pangs of hell, 
They passed the cries and curses of the damned, 
So sped adown the corridors of death 
Through the white splendour of the ivory gates. 
But when they came to where the outer world 
Broke like a dawning on the inner gloom. 
And earth's keen air renewed earth's heat in him, 
Desire to look on her, or anguish lest 
She followed not, swept over him, like flame. 
Shot madness like an arrow through his brain. 
His harp crashed and fell from him, he raised 
His arms as one that leaps from his bed in fever. 
Shrieked, and turned, but in the gloom he saw 
Eurydice, where like a ghost of twilight 
Stealing from the darksome earth, she passed. 
And faded from his sight. 

Hamlet 

Drearily, drearily over the world 

Saileth the silver moon. 

Wearily, wearily waves uphurled 

Around the sallow dune 

Lap in the spaces where shadows flee 

Breaking the silences born of the sea. 

A dreamer of dreams enhungered sate, 
And bared his soul like an olden harp. 
While steadily blew the winds of Fate, 
Blew unceasingly bleak and sharp 
Over the strings of his harp. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 21 

Sleep 

Ah, the long sweet rest 

When we shall lie down 

For a sleep — for a sleep 

Without dreams, without waking. 

When the chill of the earth will cool 

The heart's fever, the dark of the earth 

Give respite to eyes that are weary 

Of lights; when the sun nor the stars 

Shall mark passage of time. 

But in the dark stillness the minutes 

Run on into hours, the hours forget 

Themselves into eternity, 

W^hen the lustiness of moon and the silence 

Of midnight are one, and the questions 

And mysteries, the answers and truths 

Join hands for an aeon. 

When the shadows of the vast unforgotten 

Shall lean in and be blent 

With the gleam of the great forever. 

And we shall slip back from the thoughts 

Of men, lie down in the long, sweet rest, 

In the long, long sleep. 

Without dreams, without waking. 

Last Letter 

When I am dead I hope that you will come 

And look upon my face, haply then 

All the life-passions will be gone, and you 

May see more of my soul's self mirrored there. 

And if you come here you will find the women 

Whispering and gibbering about, scared out of their wits 

To see me, who but lately laughed and mocked 

With them, lying here dead. No lust 

Nor revels here to-night, till the master gets 



22 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Out of the house the cold clod that has served 

His purpose and helped swell his gains, I cursed 

You, and you went, for many told me how 

That you were false, naming the woman, still 

You swore not so, but I heard not. Whether 

You did wrong or right I know not yet, 

But rather choose to side with you than them. 

That you were true — that's my woman's pride 

That still is quick in me, though I die here 

Like a dog. I should have taken you 

Not for what you did but what you aimed 

To do. All your thoughts were large, and your soul 

Beat high, seeing the strife of flesh and spirit 

That God hath placed in us. There's the place 

I failed, and there's the trouble with us women 

In this world, there. For I had neither end 

Nor work nor aim save only you, and when 

I lost you then was I as wax in the hands 

Of every passer-by, and so am here. 

They will put flowers in my hand perhaps. 

One of the painted roses from the tawdry 

Mantelpiece, and maybe when this heat 

And heaviness is gone from my blood, I shall 

Have back some of the old fairness you used 

To prate about, if you will come. Goodnight. 

Sonnet 

Let not us young men of this living world 
Sit still and hear a modest silence preached, 
Humility and self-distrust — grow curled 
With bowing deference and tread the pleached 
Walks of convention! Nay — let us once whirled 
Into the race, with reins for heights where reached 
The soul in golden intervals and hurled 
Its chariot on clouds, stand unimpeached 
In ruggedness of youth before the host 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 23 

Of men and gods, like that deep man of Thrace, 
One Thamyris, who dared his harp to boast 
And song against the Nine, and scorned the loss 
That they might lay upon him, holding his face 
Uplifted to the hills of Tenedos. 

Last Leaves 
When I pass out 

Let me not be a broken leaf that dies 
And falls at night down through the inmost gloom. 
But catch the colour of the evening skies 
And drift out on the after-glow and bloom 
As I pass out. 

Ode in Mississippi's Troubled Hour 

Poem read before the Alumni Society of the University 
of Mississippi, June, 1904 

I heard a voice as from a burning plain. 

Up from the region of Lake Pontchartrain, 

Clear to the northward line with Tennessee, 

Cry, "Woe, ah, woe," and "Woe, ah, woe" again. 

The cotton lands are white with flower. 

The cornfields signal with their long 

Rich-laden arms, and now the hour 

Of plenty is at hand, and we are strong. 

God passeth not his people by. 

But ever comes the cry, 

In the sweet season of the summer rain. 

As though from lips of arid, sun-parched pain, 

Of "Woe, ah, woe!" and "Woe, ah, woe!" again. 

Again the season with her promise fair. 

And up from the palmlands and the southern mere, 

The birds with promise of the year's increase 

Go thronging northward through the golden air. 

But still the moaning of my people comes, 

The shadow grows, and ever growing looms 



24 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

O'er all the fair length of our land, and near 

And nearer — as the moon's eclipse that slow 

Blots the white morning of her sphere. 

Rape is afoot, and reason it must go, 

Our women are not safe, 

Slow-footed Justice drags, and men's minds chafe, 

And mobs and violence and crime 

Increase and lessen not with passing time. 

O God, that we have striven Thou dost know, 

And in our poverty have wrought to give them schools 

E'en as our children's, we have wrought, and lo. 

The outcome of it all must brand us fools! 

How has their freeedom gifted them ? 

How has religion lifted them ? 

The answer cometh sure, 

But still must we endure, 

O God, and find no balsam for the loathsome sore! 

And still we work, and still it festers more and more. 

It was the outside hand that stirred the strife. 
The tongue without that made race-passion rife, 
And if they were but silent we should feel 
Less hatred for the blacks. Some year in life 
For each of us hath memories to keep, 
Of some brown playmate good to laugh or weep, 
Some lullaby, some old black mammy who 
Has rocked the eyelids that we loved to sleep. 

It is the outside hand that stirs the strife, 

The tongue without that makes race-passion rife, 

For some there be that stand without and cry, 

*'Make them your equals, put injustice by!" 

Fools that from sorry books must take their creed, 

Nor yet have lived with us to strive and bleed! 

The two bloods are apart 

As white from black, as castle from the mart, 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 25 

And is it wonderful to them that think ? 
Nay, oil and water cannot mix I say, 
And if they should, what galling acrid drink 
To vex the throats that must drink, yea or nay. 

Time was when sainted Pilgrim fathers made 

By selling blacks to us a move that paid. 

And presently their grandsons wept aloud, 

But kept the profits of their grandsires' trade. 

Raised slave to citizen and bowed 

Down citizen to slave, and lo. 

The sons of them that flung the burning brand 

Teach us who snatch it from this wretched land 

How we may not be burned — ah, no, 

Outsiders shall not dictate so! 

The problem is our own. 

On us, on us alone 

God brings the work to bear. 

And if we shirk it now, beware, beware! 

For Chickasaw and Natchez they are dead, 

And Choctaw and Biloxi whither fled ? 

But still the rivers east and west do part. 

And still old Nanih Waiya lifts his wooded head. 

And Tallahatchie twines 

Round the willows and the vines. 

And the Waters '-Father flows 

With yellow tribute to the southern sea. 

And Yazoo or Chocchuma his red hand 

Hath played his part and is laid low. 

God's purpose changeth not, and we 

Must work His purpose or must go 

With Chata's children from this summer land. 

What if He purpose that we now should bring 

Upward another race from travailing. 

To bear from body foul with old disease 

A new child, with the race's late, late spring .? 



26 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Granted the spring be late, 

Yet surely it must come, 

Or God has stumbled in His path. His voice is dumb. 

But can the negro rise, one asks, 

And doubts his portion in the scheme of Fate. 

Such question makes him brute with human tasks, 

Such question treats of brute but not of man. 

Such question doubts the soundness of God's plan. 

Aliens know not aught and would dictate 

The solving of the riddle, and fools prate. 

We know that we know not, O God, and pray 

That Thou wilt give us answer if we wisely w^ait. 

I hear new voices from the tropic sea, 

Winging their way across the boundary 

Where all the yesterdays to-morrows meet. 

Trooping abreast with bright-clad pinions free 

That all the white, wide air with song is sweet. 

And one cries: "Lift up your hearts, O People, lift 

Your voices and your hearts all up to God, 

Who out of travail hath the nations brought 

That watch the level of His guiding-rod. 

The negro must be raised as God sees fit. 

The evil must be cured as God sees best. 

And we must strive on yet to better it. 

Seeing therein some yet unknown behest." 

And one with sterner voice: "Ye may not know 

How much the fault is yours in all this woe. 

How much the fault is others' and how much 

The fault is God's, and is not so, 

But is the gradual long working-out 

Of some large purpose." Nay, 

The world shall not go wrong 

While God lives still. 

Be strong, be strong! 

We are His tools, and shame 

It were if we should break beneath His hand. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 27 

Shall Mississippi stand 

And shudder in the hall 

Before the court of her great task ? The band 

Of feasters weave the garlands now, 

Ah, no, she shall not shrink! Her brow 

Is scarred with buffets but unbent. 

Still will she sweat and struggle on her way 

Till God give dawn to the victorious day! 

She hath stood firm where other strengths would fail. 

For once our fathers followed that slim trail 

Where panther threaded with his lonely track 

The jungle thickness of the forest's pale; 

They heard no terror in strange winds nor read 

Danger on desert prairie, Spanish rack 

And Indian arrow left them unafraid. 

Then came the horror of the civil strife 

Defiling this fair land with kindred blood. 

Then the more brutal after-period 

Of carpet-bag, but Mississippi stood 

Immeasurably calm, and wrought from all 

Her own uplifting to a higher plane. 

So shall she now win glory out of pain 

And hear again the ancient trumpet-call. 

Her calm deep reverence doth fill. 

With throats that will not silence, plain and hill. 

Hear all her rivers praising God, a throng 

Serving with slow, deep motion like her own. 

And every mist-hung morning lake. 

And rivulet in covert brake. 

Glows myriad ripples tinkling into song 

Still has she vespers murmured in the pines. 
And taper-tressed cypress for woe's shrines. 
And still her oaks bespeak the strength of man, 
Still falls the fruitful rain, the harvest floor 



28 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Is heaped, and still the great Gulf Mexican 
Breaks ever northward on a scented shore. 

And though the South must bear the Afric scourge, 

The chastisement may leave her yet more fair, 

The furnace of her agony may purge 

Away the dross and leave the pure gold there. 

She is God's chosen instrument to gain 

His Purpose' end, great travail needs great pain, 

But all shall yet be solved if God be God, 

Nor all the circling scheme of years in vain. 

Swallows 

O swallow, swallow in the dusk. 

Who skimmest the glassy pond. 

Circling and dipping with the rest 

As if 'twere naught beyond, 

Dipping thy wings in very joy 

As if 'twere naught beyond. 

Canst thou tell me what thou art. 

Thou summer wings with summer heart ? 

Or how He made thee thus to fly. 

And sent thee with a season .? 

Or haply thou scornest reason. 

And makest no vain search 

For whither and whence — nay, haply thou 

Art happiest in thy flight, 

Most joyous when thou singest. 

No questioning thou bringest. 

And only I in the coming night 

Question God's world, and cry. 

Thou canst not tell me what thou art, 

Nor how He made thee thus to fly 

And leave when thou wouldst the clod, 

But — swallow, if thou couldst but so, 

Small as thou art, then might I know 

More of myself and more of God. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 29 

To A Mouse 

Wee visitor, who steal 

Like a little pufF of smoke 

Down the shadow-line, 

How your eyes shine! 

Why do you tremble, do you feel 

That one will hurt you ? Who has spoke 

Harsh to your mother to 'member so long ? 

Sure you are yet too young for wrong. 

Busy nibbler, little mouse, 
Sleek and round and gray. 
What do you do all day 
In your twilight house ? 

And what do you do all night 

When men lie sleeping in their beds r 

Creep out when the starlight 

Comes by the window, or pale moon sheds 

A dim pathway upon the floor ? 

Dost thou flit in other forms across 

Men's dreams forevermore ? 

Where are the faces then that smile 

And fade from the dreams that mortals know, 

And tell me whose are the voices that call 

Long and sweet when sleep-winds blow. 

When dost thou sleep, what minute-while ? 

Nay, what if thou art but a dream after all, 

Thou little traveller. 

What sorrow dost thou know. 

Thou tiny reveller that dartest 

Like an arrow to and fro 

Through the troubled day, and partest 

When thou wouldst from the light. 

What hast thou heard of death ? 



30 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Too still a thing for thee to learn! 

But who knows not that death will come, 

Spite of human hearts that yearn, 

And is man's last, long sleep. 

Ah, wherefore shouldst thou weep ? 

Our life is real, all real, 

Bound are we to our destined home. 

And must go on from thought to thought, 

And ever word of joy or pain 

Comes thronging through the weary brain, 

And who hath found the end he sought ? 

But thou mayst leave the toil and fret 

For where the din with peace is furled, 

Mayst always find the hush again 

Of thy shadow-world. 

Death and the Ghost 

To Ethel Pool 

Southward the tempest sitteth dark ^v 

And binds the lightning in his hair, 
"Good faith, old man, what make you?" Hark, 
The spirits ride upon the air. 

"I must not stay," is what he saith, 
"I that am dead walk with my wraith 
On the moor to-night!" I looked beside 
And saw a thin and moonish light 
Playing between earth and the wide 
Of unneared heaven. What strange sight 
To see a wraith attend his ghost. 

"I loved not the sweet earth that the sun 
Makes glad, nor the seasons and the sky, 
Nor the fair days slipping one by one. 
Like beads upon a rosary 
Through the frail fingers of a nun. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 31 

But on the road mine eyes were fixed, 
Beating the path unto success, 
And the happiness men glean from dreams, 
And the secret mysteries and dreams 
Men tell of, passed me by I guess. 

** Therefore my soul for weariness 

Prisoned in the sluggish clay. 

Sometimes brake bonds and lived apart. 

Leaving me to my brutish way. 

For soul must live as well as flesh. 

I scarce did feel his absence then. 

But ever my vile bones quaked at death, 

As a dog will fight for the heat and breath 

That he calls life. Therefore when 

My body died and greedy hands 

Put me away from the place I had won, 

My soul-wraith died not but lived on, 

Not having had his meed of life. 

For cause nor strife, nor blame nor praise 

Was mine, nor strove I for good or evil. 

But only for myself always. 

Therefore, alack, my God hath said. 

Not having lived ye may not die, — 

I that to God cannot cry! 

"Jesu there in Paradise, 

I may not enter those fair skies 

Lest I befoul your crystal courts 

With my life's putrid story, 

And 'gainst me Hell's gates are shut 

Lest by me even the damned take glory. 

O God, for the death I one time feared! 

And ever thou phantom goest with me, 

O starved soul, and thou mayst not die. 

Immortal and without mercy." 

The wraith light it burned up and grew. 



32 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

His spirit locks fell silverly, 
His spirit fears fell too. 

'Tis a long wail like cranes that cry 

Southward their way in the bleak sky, 

Oh, desolate flights, oh, weary wings. 

O'er the endless marshes of the world! 

'Tis a long wail and gibberings, 

Hoarse cries and lifted, smiting hands. 

And the whirlwind bears them over the sands. 

The ghost he calleth as the tumult nears: 

"Hail and alas, I come! 

Woe, woe! dead naughts in the world's upward sum, 

Woe — dead lives and living deaths!" 

His anguish pierced the hoarse-dinned blast. 

The dead hands smiting and the woes grew still 

That grief more mad than their own should seem, 

And he that cried swayed to the stream. 

And to the fierce wind bent, and passed. 

The log burns low and bluishly. 

And shadows from the rafters' gloom 

Into the corner crannies hie. 

And haunt the open of my room. 

The flickering heart-flames fall and leap, 

Slow dropping round the eaves of sleep 

The rain falls silently. 

And through the thick of night and stoor 

Wails the shrill song of the phantom wight. 

And his wraith's mad yelling on the moor. 

The dead keep wassail there to-night. 

The Seekers 

It was a wreathed morn where all the air 
Seemed to tread softly o'er the mild white snow. 
While the obscured sun blurred the gray East 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW ^^ 

With gold. Serene as the vision of the placid 

Slope, calm as my steps upon the noiseless 

Snow, serene and calm was all my mood 

As one that taketh farewell of unrest. 

And sets his face to a new peace beyond. 

But that time may not stay — hark! lo, 'tis gone! 

And now, alas, what sound disturbs the marble 

Silence of the morn, what hoarse and shrilly throats 

Are these, what clangour shatters the soft peace ? 

The echoes of the wood are all of grief. 

And these that come, who may they be, that break 

Into the wood and trample the still snow. 

And smite together their extended palms. 

And from parched lips send up their raucous wailing ^. 

Wild are their locks and their round eyes are wild. 

Most like the sad rout at the gate of Hell. 

Old men and youths, old men and youths and women, 

With diverse raiment as of many lands. 

What sorrow goadeth them to such lament ? 

Voices that call and searching eyes and curses. 

Multitudinous tumult as when breakers plunge 

O'er the long stretches of the whitening shore. 

Women in mute agony with empty 

Aching breasts for Him they may not find. 

Some in their hands clutch broken toys, and one 

Her child hath clasped — so passed they speechless by. 

As having not words to name their hurt, till that 

The babe wailed in infant pain, and all 

The women shrieked and loosed their crying hearts. 

Unbound by a child's voice. Mad youth and age 

Called to the elements to answer them, 

And shook the dull heaven with woful utterance 

Of prayers and wailing. So sped by, and gave 

Room to the press behind, nor seemed an end 

To them that came and went. And one there was 

That seemed somewhat taller than the crowd. 

Uncouth his white beard fell upon his breast, 



34 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

His hair was white, and on his outworn cloak 

Dust of all climes, and on his sandal shoon. 

And from his girdle hung a flagon wrought 

Most rarely out of alabaster stone. 

With figures carved of sage men, and their brows 

Crowned with bays, that ever filed past 

Climbing an endless stair, where underneath 

Was written KNOWLEDGE. In it a bright liquor 

Was, that through it glowed, and, ever anon 

He raised it to his lips and drank anew. 

But could not quench his thirst, for every draught 

Kindled a fresh longing, as some strong cup 

Doth vex the throat scorched with a bitter drought. 

But when he had drunk, the liquor in the cup 

Was no whit less, but fairer in its hue. 

Then with new draughts and new replenishment 

He madder grew, and smote with frenzied palm 

His brow, and in the dinned air lifted up 

His voice. Hoarse was his cry with o'erlong silence, 

Or shrill uplifting in immortal pain. 

And with it all the seekers paused, while that 

The twilight wood resounded with his woe. 

"Alas, alas! I sent armed force to march 

Against my city and destroy, because 

I knew not whence I came. Vain, all vain. 

The search began in wonder and doth end 

In wonder. The swift years pass, woe, woe to him 

That seeketh and may not find!" His speech left off, 

And then as one roused forth in the street at dark 

By a danger-bell stares at another whom 

He meets, so, when his grief was spent, the others 

Drew them near and stood with narrowed brows, 

And all the voices in the wood were mute. 

And I, "Wherefore, oh, wherefore must thou thus 

Wander forever in divine unrest. 

Whom dost thou seek ? Whom with so great search 

That spies into the corners of the world V 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 35 

He hearkened as it were a distant call, 

And bent his eye on me even as an old tentmaker 

Peers at twilight for his needle's eye, 

And cried, "Oh, say if thou mayst, thou dreamer rapt, 

Whither he goeth whom I seek!" And I, 

** Friend, is it God thou seekest ? He is here." 

His gaze burned with a cruel yearning, and 

He turned from me and set upon his search. 

Yet bent not humble brow, but seemed to hold 

His inner hell in grand disdain, and like 

To him that rather wins than loses. Passed, 

And the rest with him, that once again the wood 

Shook with the clamour of the starved breasts 

Of them that sought and knew not if they found. 

To Chopin, His Prelude in C Minor 

{Life speaks) 

Cover my shoulders with the golden tissue. 

Set about my hair the rope of pearl, 

Clasp the yellow slippers on my feet, 

And round the naked ivory of my arm 

The silver coil. Smother the flare of the sconce, 

And blow out the tremulous taper, none save the lamps 

Of heaven shall light his advent. Lo, he cometh! 

Cometh the bridegroom of fair life! Day wanes, 

See how the moon shakes out her silver raiment! 

Cometh the bridegroom of fair life! Gleam, gleam, 

My slippers underneath the violet hem! 

So let me stand beside my couch to meet 

Him. I shall meet this Caesar, I 

Shall go with him, his bride. The heavy arm 

Of Charlemagne, the brawn of Eric, all 

The valour of the mighty dead that throng 

The world forever, all long since have passed 

Into his sinews, and upon his brow 

The beauty of dead times is gathered, culled 



36 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

From gardens where the roses blow most sweet. 

And she whose jewelled voice broke like a shower 

Of spirit pearls upon a spirit harp 

The starry silence of the dusky Nile 

Hath rendered unto him his meed alike 

With Thais, Helen and Semiramis, 

With Guenevere and Isoude and the Maid 

Of Astolat — so have they passed them all 

Beneath his hand, and he hath garnered all 

Their treasures to himself. The sapphire peace 

Of the wide sea, the snow-rapt silentness 

Of mountains, and the deep repose of lone. 

World-weary pyramids hath residence 

Within his eye, yea, how his glance doth mock 

Them with its large eternity. He knoweth how 

To give for trouble and despair low quietness. 

The sense of full completion; he doth bring 

A respite from long weariness and tears, 

And unto whom remember and do sigh 

He ministers that they do close their eyes 

In dim forgetfulness and an untroubled 

Sleep. So shall I sit 'beside him hearing 

Answers to the questions that return 

Like haunting spectres in the brain of man — 

Time and eternity, the bounds of space. 

And those innumerable mysteries 

That fret men out of rest shall he make clear 

To me, even as an open book in the sun. 

Or perhaps to make the hour more sweet 

He will distil upon the flower of my thoughts 

The blessed dew of memory, and I 

Shall kneel by Lethe, shedding in the gloom 

And musical low ripple of the flowing 

Dark the amber brilliance of my tears, 

Remembering the fruited days of Earth. 

Happiest this, for ever on the rose 

That is most glad and fair doth linger dew. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 37 

He Cometh, lo the bridegroom of fair Hfe! 
See how the moon shakes down the bridal raiment ! 
He hangeth as star above the gate of heaven, 
He smiteth his lyre upon the boundless air, 
The radiance of his flambeau, dazzling bright. 
Gleams through the windows of my spirit's eyes, 
And the shadow-laden, cool night-wind springs up. 
Shut to the casement of my soul — Death! 

Written at My Mother's Grave 

It was in the early spring you fell asleep, 

For I brought violets to your dear hands 

Next day when they had laid you in the still 

Dark room. And now from travelling many lands, 

From many a stranger shore of level sands, 

Made musical with waves, I come to fill 

My weary eyes with my own native scene. 

And now once more the spring brings everywhere 

The warm southwind, these quiet trees are green, 

And all along the ancient graveyard wall, 

Amid the tangled sedge, the daisies bear 

Their crowding stars. So all the memories 

I have of you are green and fresh and pure, 

Of that sweet childhood season when the flower 

Blows fair, ere petals fall and the mature 

Flesh-fruit of manhood ripening to its hour 

Cumbers the plant. Listen! the dove's voice 

In the distant brake sounding her sad pain. 

Sadly I hear, and in her mournful note 

I catch the measure of my sorrow's strain. 

Had I but had you longer, mother, then 
Haply my hours and deeds should miss you more. 
But then my heart should have you always near. 
Having your words and ways heaped up in store. 
Sweet company for many a weary year. 



38 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Such as I have are but the clambering 
Upon your patient knees to kiss your Hps, 
Or look long in your blue eyes wondering, 
Or put the dark hair from your gentle brow, 
Feeling a wondrous sweetness steal somehow 
From out your hands through all my little frame. 
Once I remember, when my terrier died. 
Through all the long stretches of the night I cried. 
And when at last I slept, they say I fell 
Amoaning in my childish sleep, but you 
Closed not your eyes, but held me always well 
Pressed into your heart and kissed my face 
As a mother can. And then the swift years flew. 
Seating grim manhood in the innocent place. 
And many-mouthed cares are knocking at the gate. 
Yet though I have no comforter so strong, 
I would not call you from your well-won peace, 
From the sweet silence of rich death. The wrong 
Men did upon your shoulders heavy sat. 
Your summer of goodness had too full increase 
And brought an early harvest of your life. 

Would call ? What mummery! Too well I know 
That those we love and those we hate must go, 
Down the dim avenues of death must pass 
Out to the fields of the great forever — lo. 
Are gone from us like shadows on the grass 
To the dark region of their last abode. 

The Mississippi hills are blue and faint. 

The air grows stiller and the sounds more sweet. 

The gray shades cluster round each marble saint, 

And in the long box walks the shadows meet. 

And on your grave, rich-ripe with golden days. 

Nasturtium cups are lit with level rays 

From the low-sunk sun. Still would I be a child, 

And come with flowers here for your dear praise. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 39 

And with GooJ morrozv, Mother^ pause to tell 
The marvels of the day — nay, nay, I know, 
I only fancy, mother, ere I go 
To say Farewell forever, and farewell. 

Sonnet 

I saw a blind man at his window sitting 

At dusk, and always his poor eager face 

Turned upward where the sweepers voiced the space 

And rustled all the dim air with their flitting. 

He could not see the wind move o'er the ground, 

Nor the faint yellow light upon the hill. 

But only leaned his poor hands on the sill 

To draw the lovely evening from the sound. 

Dear God, within this window to the sky. 

From shadowed chamber of our life we watch. 

Likewise eager and blind, and haply catch 

Now airy strain or angel wing brushed by. 

Or silence rich from the glory of thy day. 

And, sightless, only hear and feel and pray. 

Sonnet 

My duller hours may feel the need of prayer, 

Asking of Him within me and beyond, 

Spurring my puny reason to burst bond 

And beat against the mystery round us here. 

To hold my soul up thus before mine eyes. 

With all its hunger that forever goads — 

But prayers and questions were now only loads, 

Cast forgotten as my spirit flies. 

I cannot see the helm nor yet the prow. 

But know the pulsing motion is a part 

Of what holds man and star in secret spell 

Unto their destined use. I know not how — 

This flight doth pass all prayer. And then my heart 

Leaps up to hear the watch cry, "All is well!" 



40 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 



The Blind Man at the Window 

Morning-Joy 

As when pale at the portal of her chamber 

Stood, waked right strangely by some dim portent, 

Mary, the Mother of God, and watched the Angel 

Dawn from the gloom of the trees, and he spake not, 

And dumb she saw the lilies in his hand, 

And read in his face the harvest of her years, 

Felt a new fulness close about her breast. 

And clasped her hands worshipping the child 

To be; so do I in my poor fashion prisoned 

Here, meet the Morning Angel when he dawns 

Each day from the dewy East, where the wide, white air 

Hovers on the dim land. And speechless I 

Conceive the beauty of God's world. 

I know the image of the world returns 

God's fingers as wax turneth to a seal. 

Then when I feel the Angel come and gone, 

And know the sky all rifted with rose light. 

And feel the vintage stirring in my veins. 

And the dear fruitage of my soul increase, 

"Joy unto God that He will enter here. 

His wine in this poor fleshly vessel! 

Joy unto God that He will enter here, 

His wine in this poor fleshly vessel!" 

Thus do I sing, lifting my bowed head. 

And then I hear the choiring of the birds 

Break forth amid the coming morn. 

Evening-Contemplation 

Meseems that now with every wind should come 

Some Ave Mary bell, and gentle answer 

Echoed from the corners of the land 

Close the sweet day. Now the soft air doth pause. 

And silent the long shadows eastward creep. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 41 

And in the wood-aisles, like a columned church 

With many chapels, settles down the dusk. 

And spider threads amidst form elfin bridges 

For the yellow light to pass. The curving stream 

Sings louder in the gloom, and overhead 

The weary birds sail in a long line homeward. 

And then the first sky star shoots glances 

Mid the trees, and by the moving branches seems 

To wing its way in heaven. All this I do 

Remember from the time when I did see 

As you, before my orbs of sight were veiled, 

Before my heaven of vision held the cloud. 

But now my light is gone, these fairest things. 

Like noble guests shut in by closing gates. 

Bide in the chambers of my soul and tend 

The inner court, that haply I being blind 

Yet see the evening as I saw it once, 

But with a clearer vision, see it now 

Glorified and purified past words. 

Sometimes I have heard music that struck fire 

In this same secret spiritual place. 

For music is but painting in varied tones, 

And listening to it is but sight by sound. 

When in the charmed caverns of the ear 

Do pass the illumined image of men's souls 

And their ideal vistas and spectacles. 

And I do think there is a deeper vision 

To which all senses are poor channels set 

For the wide sea. An inner eye that holdeth 

Hearing and sight, taste, touch and every sense. 

As the crystal mantle of our earth, the air, 

Holds sound and heat, perfume and light, and all 

Their diverse hues and melodies and tender 

Warmths. That pierceth the thin walls of men's flesh 

Seeking the Flame, and mixed with our lives perceives 

The sweetness and the gall, that thinketh on sky 

And earth, seeing divine harmony 



42 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

And beauty, all things from the pale light breaking 
The vaulted dark, to the softness in a friend's 
Glance. Whose birth is in eternity, 
Whose death is life, whose being beats a pulse 
From that God-Force, that Open Mystery 
Whereby the sun moves and the moon hath her nightly 
Voyage, and all things great and small 
Live and fulfil their destined usefulness. 
And inner power that kindles the dull stuff 
We are, and mocks the dreary loads and uses 
Of our old world, having had glimmerings 
Beyond this life, wherein we grope in sleep. 
Stumbling in dreams toward the Great Light. 

Abner the Nazarene, to CiS;sAR Plinius C^cilius 
Secundus, Propr^tor of Pontus 

{Shewing thfit the year without Christ is void) 

'Tis now twelve moons, O Pliny, since I stood 

Handbound before thy lordly Roman tribunal. 

Since I foreswore Him, Christ. For my heart failed 

Amidst the lictors, guardsmen, and thick spears, 

And smothered torture from the lower dungeons. 

Thou knowest how the threat was on my life. 

And I foreswore Him and renounced His faith. 

And uttered imprecations 'gainst His name. 

And then thou gavest me wise Roman caution. 

Pointing the flaws, the foolery of things, 

Of miracles and wonder-working held 

By our religion, spake and bade me go — 

So much thou knowest, but thou knowest no more, 

Wherefore I write this letter unto thee. 

Out of thy door I went into the night. 

Into the wonder of the summer night. 

Went restless on beyond the city gates 

And outer camps, to where the flocks 

Wandered like slow clouds on the dim hills. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 43 

So all night long I walked beneath the stars, 

Thinking of Him that thou hadst robbed me of. 

And once a meteor shot down the sky, 

And I thought, '* Yea, my star hath fallen." — So passed 

The summer and its weary heat, and brought 

The autumn. And I saw the harvest field, 

Rich-headed sheaves where once a few seed fell, 

I saw and smiled at thy wise words, O Pliny, 

That had denied all miracles and wonders 

As foolish babble of a rabble sect. 

Through all the sundry changes of the year 

I roamed and could not rest. Empty and vain 

Shewed autumn's fruitful fruitlessness. And when 

The winter came and nights of cold, keen stars 

And wailing wind, the heat within my veins 

Seemed but a mockery of life, the heart 

Being dead. I saw the moon through the bare boughs, 

And watched and said, "Surely, without Him 

The moon's is but an idle wandering." 

I turned me unto Zion with my cry: 

"Why standest Thou afar off, O my God ? 

Arise, O Lord, O God, lift up thine hand! 

If Thou forgettest me, weigh down mine eyes 

That I may sleep the sleep of death, and wake 

Nearer to Thy likeness. Art Thou not 

A portion of mine own inheritance ^ 

O God, why hast Thou then forsaken me ? 

In the daytime I cry but Thou hearest not. 

Nor am I silent in the long night season. 

My fathers trusted Thee, O God, and Thou 

Didst hear them cry. Oh, lift me up, my God!" 

But unto me my fathers' God was mute. 

Nor any sign from Him from out the depths. 

So went I through the winter, the long days 

Before the coming of the tender warmths; 

But when at last the season shifted still 

Felt I no thawing of my frozen soul. 



44 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Surely with spring, I said, I will escape 

This thing, for then the light snow melts away. 

And the young sun powders every orchard vale 

With blossoming, and by the stream blue lilies 

Shine and quiver. Then the hills put forth. 

And courage wakens in the heart of man. 

And in their beds the waterbrooks are full. 

Yet still was I scorched with a drought 

No water could allay, no drink could slack. 

And in my heart the spirit was as dead. 

Wherefore was it then I turned me back 

Unto the fount of God, then felt my spirit grow 

Back to its wonted strength — for in man's life 

Our Christ is courage. No, I will not forget! 

For he stood by my side at the cool dawn 

As I had seen Him stand at the tomb 

Of Lazarus, and called my dead soul forth 

And loosed its cerements of doubt, and said: 

"Thou wilt not leave me, brother, it is well. 

I am thy life, the way unto thy feet. 

And I am thee, and thou me." Is this 

Likewise no miracle then that a long putrid 

Heart should throb again to life ? He was 

The same. And only I shall change with the years, 

And the world change, but He will change Him not. 

Ay, I have seen Him and I know. Wherefore, 

O Pliny, do thou let me stand again 

Before thee and unsay what I have said 

Touching this man. There will I speak 

That the world shall hear from Syria to where 

Sits lordly Rome beyond the subject sea. 

Then let me die that I may live in Christ, 

For I will rest me now beside the Fount 

Of life, having had my little day of sweat. 

And now upon me Death hath lost his sting, 

And over me the grave his victory. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 45 

The Dead Shore 

We came at last unto a desert shore 

Where the dun water crept along the ooze, 

And murmured in the rushes foul and scant. 

Meseemed there was neither light nor dark, 

But all gray twilight and a wintry fog, 

Formless and empty save for that dull sea. 

Then for the fear that shivered round my heart 

Closer I held my cloak, and turned to him 

That was my leader in the dreary place. 

"O Holy Bosom, with thy dusky wings, 

Tell him thou leadest on this weary way 

Whither we come, this desert shore, forlorn 

Of men, of sun and moon and the sweet stars .? 

And wherefore comes no cloud or heaven's favour 

To this dead air.'"' And he that walked with me, 

Whose face was hooded from my timid sight. 

Waved his dark plumes and spake: "If thou seest naught 

It is the worldly film that blinds thy vision. 

Lean to the tide and wash thine eyelids there." 

And as a weary man makes of his hand 

A cup by some cool spring, so carried I 

The water to my eager eyes, and looked. 

Lo, there upon the ashen flood I saw 

A troop of thronging shadows that did seem 

Bound for some point beyond the farthest verge. 

Frail crafts and strong, galleys, and raftures, skiffs. 

Light shallops and slow-trailing barges, fraught 

With shapes, due set across the shadowed sea. 

And from the hills behind new crowds came down 

And joined with them upon the shore. And some 

Sailed one way, some another, in long lines 

Like flight of birds, until they faded. Some, 

Alone, went weary, but spurred on by hope. 

And kept their faces to the front with brows 

Unbent ; some went alone, drawn by a will 



46 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Other than their own. One group there was 

Amid the galleys, sailing on forever 

Mild-eyed and listless, as if bound nowhere. 

One crowd went huddled down like sordid herds 

Driven to slaughter, stricken with fear and dread. 

But on one road the embarking host seemed light. 

And lifted up their songs of praise above 

The neighbouring woe. And many with tight grasp 

Held to their banners and their broken shows, 

Crosses and crescents, eagles and ivy wreaths. 

Relics and past symbols of their faiths. 

All mingled with the shapes and crowding sails 

I said, "Tell me, O leader, who these be. 

Wherefore embark they on so dun a tide. 

Why go some happy and some woebegone. 

And wherefore is their aim so various. 

So many sails unto the dim sealine, 

But all set hence and none that make return ?" 

"Lean thou," he said, "and drink that thou mayst speak 

With them." And then a second time I made 

A cup of my bent hand, and drank that sea, 

And cried: "Who are ye that crowd thus this shore. 

And whither do ye go and whither press 

Across the desert of this ashen flood.?" 

And one with unbent brow and weary eye 

Turned not but cried, "Whither? Whither? Yet will 

I seek, for in this search all loss is gain. 

And he that loseth rather hath he won." 

And one raised from a heap of shapes his form. 

And said, "Fool, fool, thou seest no light upon 

This sea, and still thou hopest for the sun. 

Think not the future can hold aught the past 

Held not." Then they upon the galleys spake. 

Mild-eyed and listless, unto him: "Wherefore, 

O wretched one, dost thou thus vex thy heart ? 

Better like us lie on the perfumed seats, 

Idle as summer in a quiet vale, 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 47 

Letting our sails drift with the wind and tide. 

We know not where we go, and if we knew 

We could not go or stay by our own will. 

Perhaps the land beyond is all of light, 

Then it were well, perhaps it is all dark. 

Perhaps there is no shore beyond this misty sea. 

But sail and sail until we come again 

Changed and remade unto another life." 

"Ye shall not sail a day," one cried, '* before 

Ye sink to rise no more, leave off your gabble!" 

Meanwhile all the sodden rout that went 

One track lay in a stupour and made moan, 

Felled like brutes and knowing not the cause, 

But spake no word. And then the song arose 

Of them that bare the crosses and they cried: 

"Farewell, farewell, O land of sleep and death. 

The way was dark but now the road is fair. 

Brighter and brighter grows the trembling sea 

Onward to where it meets the sky. Where we 

Shall see Him face to face, for as in flesh 

We died, in Him we live again. Hail! Hail!" 

But one: "The earth hath made a veil out of the sea. 

And life hath made of death a deathless veil, 

I know not where I drift." And one: "Methought 

I saw a light but see it now no more. 

Yet must I forth, alas!" Thus sang the throng, 

A surging tumult on the ashen flood. 

But loudest rose the song of them that sang, 

"Farewell, O land of sleep and death!" Beneath 

Them like an idle summer chaunt, "Let our 

Sails drift with wind and tide, we know not where 

We go." And then I turned and said, 

"Tell me, O leader, hath the verge a light? 

Methinks I see a light, yet see it not. 

Whither do they sail and whither land 

That throng forever from this desert shore .? " 

And he made answer that had froze my heart 



48 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

But for the singing of the voyagers. 
"This water hath not seen a man embark 
That ever had experience of return. 
And v^hat thou asketh of the mystic verge 
That no man knoweth till his going hence." 

MOONRISE 

It happened as I lay upon a hill, 

And looked to the heavens, at the hour when long 

And mellow lights fall slantingly and fill 

The gloaming and the dusk, and even-song 

Closeth the day, that suddenly I was ware 

Of the stars. One by one they came like sheep 

Flocking the sapphire mead — those Hghts so fair 

That hang forever in the endless deep 

And the wide fields of space, with fixedness 

That chafes us at our small imaginings 

And frets us out of rest — and then full soon 

Near skies, with twilight growing less and less. 

The clouds in the East spread upward their bright wings, 

And lo, the silver morning of the moon! 

To THE Night-Wind 

Thou summer wings strayed from some joyous breast 

Of scented garden dreaming in the moon. 

Within thy shadows nightingales entune 

Their dearest plaints, and 'tis at thy behest 

All loiterers to the realms of dreams addrest 

Break journey for a little hour and wait 

If thou mayst tell them of to-morrow's state. 

Or bringest promise of a morrow's rest. 

Within thine arms the twilight-hearted rose 

Droops, in thy locks the tempests knot their wrath, 

Stars make their secrets on thy lips to sit. 

And weigh thy breath with dreams, that while it blows 

Across the weary brow of man it hath 

Put out the fever flame the day hath lit. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 49 



Nocturne 

Soft, one goes singing on his homeward trail, 
Under the evening star — first of the band 
That shyly now will pierce the gradual veil 
That brings the solemn night upon the land. 
Sweet and sad comes up the dove's lone call, 
And weary of all things, even of hope, 
I too would yield me to the night's embrace 
And the sad shadows on the slope. 

Wilt thou not hush, thou bird, nor cease 
To laden the soft darkness with thy sorrow, 
When I who wish for naught save only peace 
Come like a tired child, and fain would borrow 
From the grim past what memory may be fair, 
And solace me with its sweet nearness. 
As he in a dark court with one small lamp 
Shades with his hand its trembling clearness. 

Nature sows wide to reap her destined state, 
And to her purpose with the field man goes, 
Nor all our railing at the hidden fate 
May ever move her ominous repose. 
And when we think to wrap us in dear hope 
And climb by dreams unto the light, 
Lo, the poor web our eager fancy weaves 
Unwinds in the sorrowful night. 

But what large accents on the inland wind ? 
Hark! 'tis his voice, the herald of the sea: 
"Lift up thy head and thy bound feet unbind! 
God poised the morning-star in courses free 
Round the great shadow of the eternal dome, 
And gave the wind to voice the space. 
And from His hollowed palm poured out the fi( 
To measure of his ocean place. 



50 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

"Art thou not part of Him and of His mind, 
The garment of the cloud, the house of Hght ? 
His mountains for thy range ? Thy feet unbind, 
Lift up thy head! Thou seest through his sight. 
Thou art of God and God of thee. Arise 
And let His will within thee wake! 
The soul that faints and hath itself forsook. 
That soul alone doth God forsake." 

Therefore no longer do I hear the bird 
In golden melody that makes his moan. 
But rather some old joyaunce long unheard. 
I sit no more a stranger at mine own, 
But roam my chamber of the spacious air. 
The prisoned moon hath found release. 
And the mysterious choir of the stars 
Sing as of old together, ** Peace, Peace!" 

) 
Rain at Night 

The rain falls in the empty streets to-night 

Gray and fine, the street-lamps overhead 

Glimmer through the aspen trees and shed 

Upon the tremulous leaves a strange white light; 

The lower lamps weave on the cobble stones 

A magic mail, e'en such as fishes meet 

When love goes questing down a Venice street 

At dusk, and torch to purple water loans 

His tresses' splendour. Ah, what sails to scan 

Upon this looming sea, what caravan 

Of dreams doth pass on nights like this! 

Yet they were poor if wholly I did miss 

The city's roar and travail from the rain 

Whose witching presence haunts the chambered brain. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 5 



The Brooklyn Ferry 

Ding, dong, dong, the bell 

Cleaving the gray dusk, 

The thick stamping and rattling 

Of feet, the thud of the wharf-doors 

Closing, passengers hurrying aboard! 

Ding, dong, dong, the answering whistle, 

The click of the iron-latticed gates! 

The white steam puffs and rises 

At the sides, the increasing splash 

Of the heavy, rumbling wheels. 

And we are off. Then after the passage 

From the plashy wooden walls 

A mellow brightening on an open sea. 

Beneath the stern a gurgling 

And stammering of the little waves. 

And in the wake furrows of light 

Following the huge rudder. 

South, East, West, the gray sky 

Is one with the waters, 

Light-lurking gray where in a trice may burn 

Some fire of passing barge. 

Or signal sent, or faint 

Reflection of an unseen blaze. 

East, West, South, gray with glimmering 

Lights that mark 

The uncertain, distant shores. 

But northward still the black shadow 

Of the city looms, towers, roofs. 

And spires, higher ever, dark. 

As if the wing of man's ambition 

Beat against the firmament. 

And now a far-off ferry-boat 

Glides through the space, all lights. 

And seems to rain stream-fires 

Into the waves, and passes and goes out 



52 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Again. Or a wet sail moves 

Like a ghost, reflecting the lurid, dim 

Lantern at the mast-top, with a loud 

Flapping in the wind. Or gulls 

Blow in from the Sound, and for a moment 

Gleam in the light-track of our boat. 

But ever the gray dusk, spreading, 

Cloaking round and above. 

Till suddenly the New York lights, 

As if a vast and wondrous 

Constellation rose, beautifully 

As a single sun, out 

Of the sea! And now 

The sister city's lamps, all springing 

Like a second galaxy 

Upon the sky. And lo, 

The long arch of lesser fires 

Bridging the spaces of the stars! 

To THE Elizabethans 

To-night I heard low music from a barge 
In travel down the river, and the strains, 
Tremulously swelling, broke the large. 
Dark silence on the waters and the plains. 
Till presently one drew up near the marge, 
And faintly rose above the hum of strings 
A ballad song of how with sword and targe 
A knight of eld did leave his revellings 
And bower to journey on a pilgrimage. 
And lo, this minstrelsy hath set awake 
My thoughts to leave this many-troubled stage 
Of everyday, and in my closet make 
Myself a palmer to that Holy Land 
Where poesy hath sepulchre and band. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 53 



To Spenser 

{Written where the Faerie Queene breaks off with an 
unfinished stanza) 

When thou leftst off — ere with its ocean sweep 

Broke the sweet thunder of the final Hne 

Over the margin of the verse' confine, — 

And shadowy death did take thee in his keep — 

Meseemed I was in a sort of sleep, 

Wherein no stirring of the flesh was mine, 

But soul wide-roving amid dreams divine, 

And my clear sight did down a vista leap. 

It was a faery corridor in space 

Strewn with dear pleasaunce and most rare delight, 

Confused sweets in dim and magic place. 

Where at the end burned ever a great light, 

Glorious and fair, though hidden was that Face, 

Being too radiant for our mortal sight. 

The Classic Soul 

Last night I dreamed that through the present stress 

Of works and hours, where men must fret and grieve. 

Seek fingerprints of Deity, nor leave 

The things that count for neither more nor less, 

I saw in vales of sun and peacefulness 

A marble shrine, gold-chased and silver, rise. 

With brazen tripods scenting those near skies. 

Where men and maidens, gay but raptureless. 

With coronals and wreaths those pavements trod. 

For tears brought honey-cakes and fat of bull, 

'Twixt flesh and spirit keeping even mean. 

Festive, calm. And lo, the fair white god 

Upon his jasper throne sat beautiful 

And cold, high and immortally serene! 



54 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Written after seeing Loie Fuller Dance 

Could he that once from Attic marble smote 

The Winged Victory but watch thy dress 

In gradual slipping on from note to note 

Of musical and plastic loveliness, 

Its undulant rhythms through the realms of light, 

Could see thy glamorous length, thy golden hair, 

And passionate, high breasts, then would he slight 

The Elysian regions, crying, *'Lo, is there 

What I have yearned ever to express. 

Have touched but could not fix, finding too cold 

The stone for such deep passion's stress. 

But this is spiritual marble, or my old 

Soul-hunger, conjuring, hath here descried 

The genius of my art and deified." 

The Ballad of My Lady Jehanne 

The owl-haunted gloom of even 

Lay yet unburied in the dark, 

Uncofiined the pale light of heaven. Didst hark 

How the vesper bell rang tolls. 

Sweet forgiveness for the souls 

Of the departed ? Chaunt and prayer, 

Round her bier the tapers' glare. 

Yellow was my love's long hair 

With the stringed pearls through it drawn, 

And tinted was her cheek more fair 

Than the damask rose at dawn. 

And the light within her eyes 

Did outshine the evening skies. 

And when the summer dusk drew round. 
Her gentle fingers touched the string 
Of her lute, and waked a sound 
To meet the notes that she did sing, 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 55 

Passing mock-bird's golden-throated 
Songs from moon-lit woodlands floated, 
While the lilies on her breast 
Rose and fell in love's unrest. 

And so I wondered that her hair 

Should keep its lustre when had fled 

The roses from her cheeks so fair. 

Lying quiet on her bed, 

So young and pale and innocent. 

While all her people came and went, 

"God a mercy on her soul," 

Said the people, making dole. 

Yet how should I know 'twas her kinsman — he — 

For none hath told my love and me. 

My sword and my love and me. 

And who hath not heard the people say. 

Coming and going the livelong day, 

**God a mercy on her soul," 

Said the people, making dole. 

Serenade 

Look out, my lady fair, and see 

The lustre of the night. 

The moon beneath her canopy 

Sails beauteous and bright. 

The hawthorn bough swings to and fro, 

The nightingale sings low, sings low. 

Look out, my lady fair. 

Lean from thy window o'er the moat, 

That mirrors dark the castle walls. 

And let the ivory of thy throat 

Gleam white from where the darkness falls 

Of thy long tresses scented so 

No garden spices here that blow 

With them can half compare. 



56 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Oh, if my broken roundelay 
On such a night seem old and poor, 
Think of the kiss that yesterday 
Thou gav'st to me, thy troubadour. 
Think of the garden here below. 
And all the joys that love may know 
Ere youth hath met with care. 

So hark, my lady fair, and hear 
The twitter of my lute that wings 
My heart to thee, my lover's-fear. 
And all the silent secret things 
That one awakened soul unto 
Another secret soul may show 
When love hath entered there. 

Look out, my lady fair, and see 

The lustre of the night, 

The moon beneath her canopy 

Sails beauteous and bright, 

The hawthorn bough swings to and fro, 

The nightingale sings low, sings low. 

Look out, my lady fair! 

Ballad of the Round Table 

Where is the glittering caravan 

With brazen trumpets all aflare. 

And all the glory dear to man 

Of steel's white edge and helmet's glare, 

And banners bright in summer air. 

True knights all whose only care 

Is whether ladies praise or not, 

Squires and falcons in the rear 

Riding down to Camelot ? 

Who knows the jests of Dinadan, 
Or marvels at Isoude the Fair ? 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 57 

How doth the Lord of Carnavan, 
And Tristram, Gawain, Bedivere ? 
Ah, where is the sail on the aHen mere, 
To Sarras with three to watch and ware ? 
Where are the tempers lusty, hot, 
The flower of May, the favour to wear. 
Riding down to Camelot ? 

Nay, what are the fires now that ran 

Scorching the veins and streaking the hair. 

Where is the love of the son of Ban, 

That marred his search and clogged his prayer ? 

The hundred knights upon the stair, 

The beauty and taint of Guenevere, 

The arm and passion of Launcelot, 

The silence, struggle, and despair. 

Riding down to Camelot ? 



Arthur, king without a peer, 

Even thy sepulchre is forgot, 

Thy courts, thy joustings, where, oh, where. 

Riding down to Camelot ? 

The Ballad of the Bells of Boscastle 

The sky is vanished from the world, 
Nor even a shadow lingers more. 
But through the dark upon the wind 
I hear the waves upon the shore. 

It was four hundred years agone. 
The bay it mirrored every star. 
And 'mid the stars the captain saw 
The lights upon the harbour bar. 

The captain smote his brawny chest, 
'Tis I that brought y quoth he. 



58 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

The bells from Fraunce, nor asked for help 
Christens moder dear, Man. 

The captain glared, the seamen stared, 
The wind is on the waste, 
The stars are dimmer one by one, 
The pilot crosseth him in haste. 

The fierce wind bringeth thicker night. 
The black waves beat against the sky. 
Ye cannot see the signal lights, 
Ye cannot hear the sailors' cry. 

The bells of Fraunce upon the prow 
Will never in the belfry hang. 
And now, they jangle as they toss 
A mad, wild clang. 

Upon the sands the seamen's bones 
'Mid the white corals lie. 
And in their midst the bells of Fraunce 
Still ring them ceaselessly. 

The lithe sea-maidens circle round, 
And dance within their wake. 
And strange sea-things abide to hear 
The melodies they make. 

And thus for sinful souls they pray 
Christe's moder dear, Mari, 
And sailors hear them far and near 
Go ringing in the sea. 

To A Little Blue-Flower in Cornwall 

Little blue-flower on the cliff. 
Looking outward to Cardiff^, 
Can you hear me while the tide 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 59 

Beats below such stress and stride ? 
If not I can wait, you know, 
Till the tide is low. 

Meseems that you have never died 
From King Arthur's day to this, 
Though each winter you must hide 
From the mistral's touch and kiss, 
But you come with spring again, 
And the clear, white rain. 
And the fair 
Young April air. 

Once what cavalcades passed here, 

Martial music in your ear! 

Here the King's Round Table passed, 

And the damsels of the Queen, 

With the big herds following last, 

Tribute of the King's demesne. 

Here on her palfrey Guenevere 

Came all in green and gold arrayed. 

And strong and bright Sir Launcelot's spear 

In her service long assayed. 

Here went Sir Gareth and Sir Bors, 

Ygraine, Nimue, and Peleas, 

With shying steed at prickly gorse. 

La Beale Isoude did hither pass 

Riding with Tristram from the spies 

Of crafty Mark. And her eyes were blue. 

Blue and tender as the skies. 

Little flower, and so were you. 

That was many years ago. 

And you have watched them one by one, 

Fewer, fewer, come and go. 

Till their days were done. 

Still from your thoughts, oh, treasure-trove, 



6o THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

You can people every cove, 

Till all the shore v^ith fairies teems, 

Cast round each distant passing boat 

Some dim romance spun from your dreams. 

Can see the v^hite gulls upv^ard float 

As if foam-caps blown astray 

Drifted from the flocking spray. 

Still may you hear the night-wind go 

Whistling where the rushes move. 

Hear the surges swinging slow 

In a smooth, blue-watered cove, 

May fancy music in the air. 

Gauntlet clink on boss of targe. 

From some carven pageant-barge 

Anchored there. 

And with your breath the air is laden, 
And the perfume of the heather. 
As when faery lady's maiden 
Mingles honey sweets together. 
Like the spirit of the savour, 
As the ancient legends tell, 
As a signal of his favour 
Jesu sent into the cell, 
Round Sir Launcelot's low bed. 
When the startled brothers crept 
There and found him lying dead 
As if he smiled and slept. 

And you have memories to hold 
Of the morning of this land. 
Of fresh dew and that first gold 
That the morning brings to hand. 
And flowers that have seen, I trow. 
Mighty thoughts become great deeds. 
Find it easier to grow 
Tall 'mid common choking weeds. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 6i 

They that have seen not count such love. 
Such feats, such strokes but bard's fancy, 
But you have seen, nor doubts can move 
That such things be. 

Perhaps your purity now joins 

Our age to Arthur's purer one. 

Who knov^s but from his princely loins 

Some drop of blood our veins may run ? 

And I claim that each tide may bring 
Word of some lord once that bore 
Mind of child and heart of king, 
That some brave deed and hand of yore, 
Like a sweet, strong, rich incense, 
Still may rise to them that strive 
For a larger sky and live 
Lives in the old innocence. 

Lines Written at Tintagel in King Arthur's 
Country 

To Sarah and Frances Starks 

Still beats the lusty, ever-changing tide 

About the shore, and from each hollow cave 

And secret cavern the reverberations 

Of the vexed surge spread like the sound of wind 

Over the lone moors. And still the cry 

Of seabirds on the cliff, and the black rooks turning 

Their course landward at night, and the slow, white gulls 

Circling in dizziness above. Still 

The spring returneth with May sun that blows 

The flower in men's blood, and with the tender 

Herbage on the hills again, the soft 

Reviving of old tenderness in hearts 

Grown half-forgetful of old ties. And summer 

Comes, and the hard winter that doth build 



62 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Might and courage in the sinews. But 

Where the great king, the prowess and the strokes, 

The feasts, the chivalry, the royal state 

And splendour of his hall ? The selfsame cliffs 

Are here, and the sea lashing at the crags, 

But of the castle keep three lone walls left. 

Toppling into ruins that mock man's work. 

Here once met the brave valour of the world. 

And beauty culled from every part was here. 

Here shields heraldic once blazed back the sun, 

And like a forest massed the helmet plumes 

Where the fight thickened, and the tall spearheads 

Flickered, as they moved, like many flames. 

And here the coursers' and the war-steeds' trappings 

Hung, all heavy with golden gauds and bells. 

That when their mettled wearers plunged and sped 

Did crash and jingle sequences of chords 

Barbaric, fit for a Cyrus' ear. This plain 

Felt shock of tournaments, gay joustings waged, 

Fights to the death for honour or in judgment 

Ominous. And often in the night 

The sharp-striking steel feet of horses came galloping by, 

'Mid rattle of pebbles and wild flash of helmets and arms. 

And clatter and clanking of bridle and mail, growing 

dimmer 
And duller, then gone, while the silence that 
Returned found in the windows many a face, 
'Mid her long, loose hair, of maiden waked from dreams 
And set all wondering at the troop of brave 
Strange youths that rode so gallantly that way. 
But now dun shadows keep them round Tintagel 
And naught now passeth save the wind that seems 
To echo the mournful tides below. And now 
The swine have made their pens within the court. 

Yet who knows but that tournaments do hurtle 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 63 

In the moony air, that everlasting strife 

'Twixt good and evil, shaking the spirit world 

As ours. What spirit of the wind may bring 

His might to wrestle here with direr shapes ? 

On what night may come hither Arthur the King, 

With his jewel-hilted brand Excalibur, 

Living the gone glories of his time ? 

Or like a vision Guenevere the queen 

In mystic cerements of white samite clothed 

Goes trooping with her maidens through the fields 

Of sleep. Or Sir Gawain comes pallidly. 

All worn with his deathwound, and rests him here, 

While all the fair ladies that he championed 

In this fierce world do minister to him 

With motions slow and tender, and do sing 

Strange songs, with garments strange, all glimmering 

In the dim glances of the haunted noon. 

That was a time when men held purity 
Clear as a star above the earthly road, 
And when the fair ideals of souls athirst 
Were symbolized within the Sangreal. 
For that all eyes ached, and to that all hearts 
Did ever yearn, the emblem of the fierce 
Soul-hunger of mankind, comprised in 
The cup that bore the blessed blood of God. 

That was a time when sage and common men 

Alike saw God as one, even intimate 

As a father leaning ear unto their cries, 

Yet distant and sublime as is the far 

Vault of heaven. And if despair and hate 

Or wild revenge, or the strong 

Sweet fleshly love 'twixt man and woman brought 

Blind vision and the fall to deadly sin, 

Humbly the strong man did repent and wept 

Even as a beaten child, and strove to lift 



64 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Himself again to the old high station. 

So that the river of men's lives ran clear, 

Flowed on unsullied to the eternal sea. 

But now men do not weep, but fall and mock 

The height they fell from, and the sluggish 

Current of our puny lives is muddied 

With questions that we fain would know. And now 

We live not by the great instinct for right 

God puts in us, but think, and try to live 

Our theories out. So that our thoughts are greater 

Than our lives. And those that cannot think 

Great thoughts must make what shift they can to live 

Well, seeing they have not great lives about, 

Have not those clear-souled, mighty-statured men 

To pattern on, as a wise child on his elders. 

Arthur the king his glory is not safe. 

Nor the large rumour of old fames, nor mystic 

Splendour of world-worn creeds. Now the glass 

And monuments of ancient faiths are hacked 

And battered. Men do seek to prove them all 

A myth. And the pseudo-learned go like swine 

To turn up ugliness and filth and snout 

At the foundation walls, making themselves 

Haply a little burrow or pigsty 

In the old courts of men's philosophies. 

O world, O days of chivalry and men, 

O air that stung men's nostrils like a flame 

And fired their bloods, what ails us now that we 

Have this same air and memory of all 

Those men and deeds and are not greater ? Though 

Our work is humble and less slow to end 

Than theirs, teach us 'tis not the work man doth 

But the spirit that he bringeth to the work 

That makes the greatness. Oh, stir our bloods 

To boast great thoughts and deeds, and take the issue 

Be it dungeon, bower, or the broad 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 65 

White road of fortune, and let the new 

Ideals that the masters of this age 

Have helped to point shine clear for us as once 

The holy vessel of the Sangreal. 

And if we have not that great child-like faith 

Men once had, give to us the will to hold 

In us inviolate that simple faith 

That men owe unto God and to all men. 

Song 

Thy heart to me is one fair rose 
Which at the earliest dawn doth wake. 
And when the wind of even blows 
Holds still its sweetness and doth shake 
An opiate into my sleep, 
That from my dream-thoughts I may take 
A sweet remembrancer to keep. 

Night and Love 

Dark were the hours of night. 

The sweet stars keeping 

Them hid in the mantle of clouds. 

The fair moon sleeping, 

And the drear wind astray without light. 

And the sound of the wind was as moaning. 

And over the strip 

Of meadow the light-shadows pass. 

And the little leaves drip 

On the great limbs twisting and groaning. 

But at last blew the rose in the East, 

And the sun upspringing. 

And night fled away from the hills. 

And rivulet-singing 

And blithe bird's-songs were released. 



66 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

So in the years all my heart 

Was dark with a sighing 

And shadow, till from the rose fingers 

Of love came flying 

The arrow that drove night apart. 

So on my heart's high closes 
Love secretly crept, 
Came like the perfume of morning, 
Fell on my face as I slept. 
Sweet as the petals of roses. 

The Coming of Love 

The wild grape blossoms spice the air, 
And fullest summer doth begin. 
But all my heart was winter bare. 
And only now my spring blows in. 

And long had birds sung melodies. 
But not till now a song for me, 
A late lark in my spirit's skies, 
Came Love and sang out goldenly. 

Sonnet 

I saw the summer ripen to attain 

Her gorgeous noontide, but to be enwrought 

With Autumn pageants decking to be slain 

By crackling frosts and icy torments brought 

In wintry blasts. But who beneath the plain 

Keep an unbroken sleep, they cannot know 

The year's aspects, Antonius, Charlemagne, 

Cedric, Roland, all. And thou wilt go, 

And I, where they have gone, and make an end. 

So now to heaven I make large offering 

Of thanks for the short sweet term that He doth send. 

And while the bier is making hear thee sing, 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 67 

A registry whose content doth repeat 
AH witchery of night and music sweet. 

Love and Sleep 

A silent castle on a gloaming hill, 

Dark cypresses against a sky that fades, 

And drowsy homing birds that circling fill 

The air with wings, from out the shades 

Chirps and low flutterings and the stir of leaves. 

The droning choir of flies above the moat, 

Dull-dropping water and a pasture-bell, 

Lone calling dove with sorrow-laden throat, 

I thought on all but sleep wrought not her spell. 

Then came a blank before mine eyes, a flight, 

And lo! I saw a fairer land, the moon. 

Watched o'er a pathless sky of summer night. 

And one sang softly that the hills did swoon. 

And drew her near and smiled and beckoned me — 

And then I knew I slept and dreamed of thee. 

Love and Ambition 

Now in the season when bright youth would fain 

In wind of every rushing world take breath, 

My soul would range the palaces of Death 

To solve the old world-mystery again. 

I hear the waves beat on the eternal strand, 

And from the great life-ocean sound each name 

Made glorious with broad earth-ringing fame. 

And there beneath, the humble lesser band 

Runs a low murmur to the larger sound. 

Shall I be numbered with that troop, I cry. 

Whose thoughts are music in mens ears ? Around 

The thunder of the great sea booms — but high, 

O love, and sweet thy voice comes o'er and o'er 

That calls me backward to the human shore. 



68 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 



On Sending a Coverlid 

Coverlid, go to her and thou shalt find 

Worthiest service. Soothe her sleep and shield, 

Cover her sweet young body as a warm south wind 

Gathers o'er some tender flowered field 

In the early spring. Tell her that rest and old. 

Still country peace are with thee — say but them! 

For to thee many secrets have I told, 

And in the seams and crannies of thy hem 

Have hid a hundred kisses, and did trace 

The thousand little crossings of the lines 

With kissing of my lips, and bade them stay 

To nestle close about the little face 

That like a pale rose-tulip softly shines 

Upon her pillow when she wakes at day. 

Sonnet 

When the bright windows of my memory 
Do colour that long transept of my brain. 
And with the semblance of each separate stain. 
Sweet various lights fall down through slantingly 
Upon the flags, then all the glooms must flee 
Before the flooding of that rainbow rain. 
But richest windows without sun were vain. 
And these the light that lights them is from thee. 
Thou art my sun that comes with dawn and wide 
Fresh woodlands, morning fields and streams, to fill 
The noon, and bring the restful eventide. 
And when night cometh, beautifully still 
Dost light the moon of all my dreams, and then 
Moonset and waking and thy dawn again. 

The Mother 

The sick mother sat at her window singing, 
Rockabyy sing rockaby. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 69 

And the long day closed and the dark came bringing 
Night and dun sky. 

She bent her poor arms where he had lain 
And fancied she saw him, and sang her song, 
Sleep, little one, but never again 
Her voice shall reach him, dead so long. 

Lower and lower she bent her head, 
Rockaby baby, when the winds blow, 
Over her poor vacant arms, and said, 
"Mother is with you," faint and low. 

And the years went back without spot or stain, 
All the long years since she lost her child. 
And peace came after long grief and pain, 
And her still lips smiled. 

And when she was dead some little space. 
They found her and wept, till the moonlight fell 
Upon the glory of her face, 
"Dear God," they said, "'tis well, 'tis well." 

The Bairn 

Befell that after Michelmas, 

Poor Tess was delving on the brae. 

The Elfland Queene came riding by, 

"Come hider, fair Tess, come away, come away." 

"I may not come wi' thee, fair queene, 
I may not come alang." 
"I'll take thee to the lily South, 
The sweet love-bowers amang." 

"Not in love-bowers I'll lay my head. 
In the sweet South Land to be, 



70 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

But where men die and women cry 
In my North Countree." 

"I'll gie thee a palace all o' red gold 
An thou wilt come beside." 
"I fain would go to the golden palace, 
Where I may ever bide." 

A merry laugh laughed the Elfland Queene, 
She catcheth Tess by the waist, 
"Oh why, fair Tess, dost come so slow, 
And wherefore mak'st no haste?" 

"Go thou thy way, thou Elfland Queene, 
I maun na go wi' thee. 
And go thy way, thou Elfland Queene, 
'Tis my bairn acallin' me." 

Triolet 

{To my little Auntie) 

She is so sweet 
I love her well. 
Demure, discreet, 
She is so sweet 
My verses' feet 
Can only tell 
She is so sweet 
I love her well. 

Sonnet 

Note thou thy mirror that with its clear truth 
Doth catch unto itself thine outer mould. 
Speaks what it seeth without pause or ruth, 
And doth the tally of each feature hold 
And all the sun and shadow that doth pass. 
So am I mirror to thy secret grace. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

For sooner than the object to the glass 
My inner Hght thy spirit's shape doth trace, 
And doth perceive the image of thy soul, 
The fair domain of its celestial hue. 
Where varied prospects of its uplands roll 
To the sweet vagueness of the distant blue. 
Beauty that passeth all that eye can guess, 
More rich than words, more fair than loveliness. 

Unfaithfulness 



Ere I had learned you false, or once had let 
Doubt like a carping hag stand in my door. 
Then I, poor fool, had in my fancy set 
A vision born of days that are no more. 
'Twas once when you were sick I pictured it, 
A peaceful country spot, if you were well, 
Where I should till my field, and you should sit 
Beside the doorway listening for the bell 
That brought me home to you at evensong. 
To sit together on the hearth at night. 
Fresh 'mid our weariness, in our love strong. 
While time creeps by, till soon the soft moonlight 
Looks through the window on us nodding there — 
Oh, fool, knowst not her false that seemed so fair ? 



Think not that I will die as poets say, 

Nor starve mine eyes in exile from thy sight. 

For though the night hath slain the gentle day, 

I know the day returneth on the night. 

Men must live to work their destinies. 

While unto thee this love is all of life. 

And haply I shall find me larger skies 

In the brave struggle of the world's sharp strife. 



72 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Yet sometimes when I toss my wakeful bed, 
Life seemeth long, the chamber vacant seems, 
The slow years jostle as they do in dreams, 
Thinking on you, and what with you is dead. 
For from my heart young trust is gone with you, 
And left it wiser, yes, — and bitter too. 

The Return 

To A. L. Bondurant 

Sit here beside me, noble wife, O name 

More sweet than sound of waves on reedy shore, 

That rose and fell the night long in my ear. 

And said, "Penelope, Penelope," 

There where the thousand towers of Ilion 

Hung glistening in the moon, afar, and made 

Lightning of the pale stars' glimmering. 

Through the wild battle shout and clang of arms, 

And through the mad slaughter when Simois stream 

His channel narrowed with the Trojan limbs, 

Warmed with the mixture of the gory death. 

And after, all the years I roamed the world. 

On windy plain and over the large sea. 

My thoughts were thronged with thy images. 

But most I saw thee in the shadowed door 

Stand looking after me with thy sad eyes 

To bid me hail and pray the blest gods' help. 

Round the wild Egean further than man 

Hath been, we passed, ploughing the windy water 

With bold prow, and whitening the swirled waves 

With spume. Where out of it emerged wild faces 

Of Neureus' daughters marvelling at a sight 

So strange, and at that time our mortal eyes 

Saw the sea nymphs with their naked bodies rising 

Breast-high from the snowy wake. And back again 

By Colchis and the blue Symplegades, 

By Sicily and the wind god's gusty isles. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW n 

And round ^aea lapped in sorceries. 

Whete is a garden, lo! I heard one singing, 

Who when she saw me nearing, left her song 

And took me to her hall to do me honour. 

A palace hung with tapestry and arms, 

And tripods, fountains, and heaped flowers, that all 

The chamber air laughed with the jocund odours. 

And then she sang again, and then meseemed 

She drew the very heart from harmony 

And sent a madness through my listening brain. 

My glutton comrades had she changed to swine. 

And when I drank her potion I had changed. 

Had not before me stood the shining god. 

Who gave me one white flower and spake thy name, 

Penelope. And once at dusk when first 

The stars shone on the marble of the flood. 

Unto mine ear from where the Sirens sang 

Came honied chaunts across the summer sea, 

Ah, sweet enough to melt the very bones 

Of the fixed purpose. But thy strong love 

With faithfulness had fortressed up my heart 

More strong than Saturn seven-ringed with flame. 

And how I passed the whirlpool and the rock, 

And camped among the cattle of the sun. 

Bode on Calypso's isle, and how I heard 

The shriek and gibber of the wretched shades 

In the Cimmerian gloom, have I told thee. 

Of Nausicaa and King Alcinous, 

And that Phaetian ship that brought me home 

On yesterday thou knowst likewise. Where I 

Found thee with thy faithful web, and all that courtly 

Evil dogging thy tracks, thy lustful suitors. 

Ay, often while the sailors slept, I came 

And stood upon the foamy prow, ere yet 

The slim moon sank, slow faded in the west. 

The dawning-wind heaped up the sloping waves, 

And from the threshold of the wandering sun 



74 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Morn walked upon the sea. And slowly first 

Under the gentle breeze .the waves ran lightly, 

That in our track a plangour of laughter rose, 

But after more and more with the growing wind 

They grew, and swimming backward from the east 

Shone with the purple light. And ere they woke, 

My men who must not see me sad, I said: 

"Now she hath risen and the hearth is bright. 

And on her knees my son Telemachus 

Lisps his sweet idle prattle, or clutches with 

His little hands her ears and kisses her. 

Methinks she sayeth *Kiss me twice, child, once 

For thee, once for thy father who returneth not."* 

And often had I sent my hungry glance 

Where the line spreads on the unbroken sea. 

And felt my cheek grow pale lest thou be dead. 

But when at last my own loved Ithaca, 

My father's land, sloped to the misty sea, 

I could not think thee dead that always used 

To welcome me when I returned me home. 

Yet when I saw thee from afar, standing 

Again within thy shadowed door, I looked, 

And looked again, and could not check the mad 

Unconquerable surging in my heart. 

Nor yet believe mine eyes saw what they saw. 

But drawn more near heard thee speak with thy heart, 

And say, "Ulysses," and, "He cometh not." 

Nor e'er had known my name to have so sweet 

A sound as when I heard it syllabled 

By thee. Now have the blest gods heard thy prayer. 

And now to-night once more I see the moon. 

That with her monthly course hath measured long 

The journey of my absent years, trace there 

Upon the pavement court the grapeleaf's shadow. 

O home the temple of the true soul-gods, 

O home, and chastity, and love of woman 

That buoyed me and my ship upon the sea, 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 75 
Nor yet will fail me in the supreme hour! 

Song 

Oh, all my heart is like the sea, 
With tides that ebb and flow, 
And thou art a fair sea-jewel 
That lieth deep below. 

And deep below the changing waves 
The luminous sea-stone lies, 
The clear day cometh from the East 
And paleth from the skies. 

Star-fires throng the glassy flood, 
And the gentle moon at even, 
The waters' lovely paramour. 
Wanders the field of heaven. 

And moon and stars and sun all fill 
The sea-gloom round thy place. 
But though they fade still shines my sea 
With the jewel of thy face. 

GORDIA 

The nightbird crieth a long wail, 
'Tis a ghostly hour, the stars are pale, 
The horned moon drifts down the West, 
The spectre day hath stirred and soon 
The sea-mells chatter in the nest. 
Why goeth Prosper on the sands ? 
Lo! phantom mists are on the plain. 
Cold the wind comes from off the main. 

Out in the melancholy stars 

The ghosts of dear lost things must come. 

And many, many a weary day 



76 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Prosper hath his wont to roam. 
'Tis follow, follow, ah, welaway. 
Tarry, young Prosper, and go pray. 
Light thy taper and tell thy beads, 
Criste's moder hath ear for lovers' needs. 

'Tis the hour I wis the fisherfolk say 

That Gordia comes from the sea to the rocks, 

And singeth her piteous lay. 

Weaving her garland of pale sea-stocks. 

Strange are her ballads the fishers tell, 

For mortal men not well, not well. 

Some say she is a sea-witch come 

To bind poor sailors to her will. 

Some speak her fair, a princess from 

The palace of the sea-king, still 

They fear, and sometimes in a ring 

The gossips gather whispering — 

It is a grisly crone that saith 

A haunted song on yesternight 

Hath waked her from a dream of death, 

And she saw through the moony fog the light 

Gleam on the robe of the sea-maiden. 

And how her song was sorrow-laden 

As any woman's that may weep. One cries 

"Nay, nay, 'twas never a song 

From a woman's heart, the song I heard, 

But a wild and ringing melodie 

Of all the kingdoms that belong 

In the sea-king's rich demesne. 

Of wreathed pearls and gems that gird 

The brows of his maidens under the sea 

And their golden hair." 'Tis three have seen 

Her spread her mantle of fair sea-lace 

Bossed with lilies and sweet sea-dace. 

And long would she wave at a passing boat. 

Ah, sailor, sailor, didst not hear? 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 77 

Alack, then hath she torn away 

The bright pearls from her swelling throat, 

And children later playing there 

Find strange sea-gems and a broken wreath, 

And all-afFrighted hold their breath, 

"Thus Gordia," they say, "doth snare 

Poor boatmen to their death." 

But late young Prosper cometh home, 
For when his good ship sank at sea 
Through many a citie did he roam 
And many a far countrie. 
Where men to wondrous ventures come. 
Yet plain and citie must he scorn. 
Knowing she waited, sad, lovelorn. 
But when he cometh to the bay, 
"'Tis seven year this Whitsuntide 
She waiteth not," the fishwives say, 
But no man knoweth where she died. 

Prosper he is mad they say. 
He keepeth but his cot by day. 
By night the sands and the cold sea-air. 
The long waves moan unto his call, 
"Will no one tell me whereas my love. 
Or who hath her in thrall ?" 
"Prosper is mad," the fishwives tell, 
"The inlet sands he maun beware. 
For on a night will ring his knell 
When Gordia singeth there." 

He waiteth not to hear them carp, 
The dunes their ghostly shadow throw. 
The moon's rim droppeth down the sky. 
He paceth ever to and fro. 
"Will no one tell?" The wind is sharp. 
And who will hear his cry f 

LOFC. 



78 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Alack, what charm upon him fell ? 

'Tis never mortal throat I trow 

Singeth so wildly well. 

Lo, from a rock 'mid scrare sea-kale 

A maiden watcheth yet the sea, 

And beautiful and pale. 

But on her cheeks the coral hue 

And coral on her full lips too, 

And hiding her shoulders everywhere, 

Half-hiding e'en her bosom's swell, 

And twisting seaweed-like it fell. 

The treasure of her golden hair. 

With it the bright sea-gold is spun. 

And up and down her fingers run 

Loosing the tangles there. 

And at her waist her fair white flesh 

Glows with the lustre of her zone, 

Of amber and pearls in knotted mesh 

And unnamed sea-stones in it sewn. 

Where from it hangeth half-aslant 

All the long mantle fold on fold. 

Sinuous and undulant. 

Dim twilights in its tissues sleep. 

As some soft wave from out the deep 

Were woven in with threads of gold 

And broidered flowers of wide sea-wold. 

Is it the coral and sea-tints there. 

The green of her mantle, the gold of her hair, 

The lines of her body flowing free. 

The swell of her breasts like waves at sea 

Rising ever rhythmically ? 

Is it the song the maiden sings 

Bindeth Prosper motionless ? 

Or what sea-magic is't that brings 

Into his eyes the blind distress ? 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 79 

Monotonous and swinging slow 

Is the burthen Hke a wave, 

But her voice is rich and low, 

And the murmur of it sweet 

As when distant surf sounds beat 

In hollows of a deep sea cave. 

^^PFhen the wind blows in across the bay, 
'Tis follow, follow, ah, welaway ! 
For her that waiteth on the stone. 
Sailor, make moan. 

^^JVhen a lad hath sailed upon the main 
And never, never come home again, 
His lass must rue, the way is wild. 
Ah, Mary Mother, keep thy child 
Left all alone. 

" There was one who sat beside the shore 
And watched the sea, and more and more. 
But no sail came. And by and by. 
When in the bay the tide was high. 
They came and found her not, and wept. 
But still the sea his secret kept. 
Sailor, make moan.** 

'Tis follow, follow, ah, weladay, 

The wind hath blown her voice away — 

Prosper listens in a spell. 

The chaunt hath broke and only the sound 

Of the muffled, distant buoy bell 

To show the tide is gaining ground. 

Ah, sweet the bell, some witch's spell 

Hath surely sounded Prosper's knell. 

For still he moveth never on. 

Nay, listen, listen, she lifteth yet 

Her voice above the bell's far ringing, 

And Prosper standing like a stone 



8o THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Hearkeneth her singing. 

^^ Red IS the coral under the sea. 
And round it the bright fishes swim, 
My love he cometh not to me 
And ever I must wait for him. 
White coral grows the red among. 
And pale sea-grasses floating long, 
And will he never hear my song 
And come away with me ? " 

Meseems the last word hath not died, 
Ere Prosper springeth to her side. 
In her blue eyes he hath found 
Sea-lights changing momently, 
Her silken lashes fringing round 
Like shadows on the sea. 

'*Dost know me not?" she saith, "ah, me," 
'Tis long I waited thee." 

"Nay, the first song showeth thou art thou 
Thou that didst love me, even thou. 
But I am wildered I know not how. 
For thou singest burthens strange, 
Strange are thy garments, all is strange. 
Sure thou hast suffered some sea-change." 

"Thou camest not for evermore 

To me on the lone shore. 

I said, *If I call him loud he will hear 

Ere the long day come and go, 

Prospero, Prospero. 

O round moon rising out of the dark 

Bearest my love in thy yellow bark V 

The white-capped breakers have heard my moan. 

The breakers whisper under their breath 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 8i 

'Death, Death!' 

The sad sea-voices moaned and called. 

'Twas down, down, straight down 

To regions where the shifting air 

Was liquid emerald. 

I sat by the sea-king's windows all day 

And saw the idle sea-folk pass. 

And watched the haunted wrecks drift by, 

But thine came not, alas. 

It was an elvish light from heaven, 

With a bright blur for the sun, 

And the charmed moon at even 

Rising through the unfathomed green. 

Seemed a far-off shadow-sheen. 

In the sea-groves I called thee loud and low, 

Prospero! 

And the sea-king hath heard my cry, and saith 

*I would not have thee sorrow so, 

He shall have sea-life after death, 

And come home to thee, never fear, 

If thou waitest seven year.'" 

Then who hath known him greater bliss. 

Or dear delight to follow pain, 

For heart hath never joy, I wis, 

Like lovers met again. 

The dawn is in the pallid skies, 

She wreathes a circlet on his brow 

Of pearls and sea-anemones, 

She leaneth lower to him now, 

And long she kisseth him, till lo! 

The sea-lights come into his eyes. 

The tide it crawleth gradually, 

And down together will they go 

To the green fields of the sea. 

'Tis follow, follow, ah, welaway, 



82 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 

Who knoweth when 'tis true love's day ? 
Out of the deeps come joy and pain, 
Into the deeps are ever fain, 
Who know^eth v^hen they go again ? 

The fishers on the lone dun sand 
Will never see his figure looming, 
The moon it riseth, on the strand 
The great waves booming, booming! 

It was an idle, weary day. 

Their dim-flared lanthorns with them bringing, 

Homeward they turn them one by one, 

"Jesu pity him," they say, 

"For this with her wild, witch's singing 

Gordia hath done." 

To My Sister 

Pale as thou art in the long lonely East, 
O moon, beyond the dark violet field of sea. 
Across thy restless path light-arrows flee 
Like fire-flies from some faery stream released. 
And bring me thoughts of her with the white brow 
And deep, kind eyes. Haply she too to-night 
Looks up at thee as I. The flowers now 
Blow sweet, and she is sweet in thy fair light. 
While round her, in each walk and garden way, 
The shadows shorten as thou climbst more high. 
Or, tired with the sweet mercies of her day, 
Ere this did she up to her chamber creep. 
And now the fringes of her eyelids lie 
Closed in the visit of the angel Sleep. 



THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 83 

To Thorne 

{Fourteen years) 

My little boy with the woful Latin book, 
It's many a time I've thought of you o' late, 
Meseems your every gesture, every look, 
Your coming, going, glance, each way and trait 
Have come by night and day, not far apart. 
Come like sweet pilgrims knocking at the gate 
Where memory, a meadow round Time's brook. 
Spreads green before the castle of my Heart. 
Each pulse of the big engines toward the prow. 
The steerage men that sing and dance at night. 
Cranks, bells, wheels, all would be your keen delight. 
Ah, Sir All-Eyes, what work would I bestow 
To pour in measure of a lasting rhyme 
For you, the essence of your golden prime. 

Sonnets 



It is a solace of mine own, dear friend. 

That in thine absences I have thee still. 

No red sun sinks behind the wooded hill. 

No pale moon rises in the eastern bend. 

But I must look and question in the end 

If thou too lookest from thy window sill. 

And let'st that same old human hunger fill 

Thy heart. No low-sung evening songs but send 

Mine ear alistening for thy voice to ring. 

To all my journeys among books I bring 

Thy thoughts and words that I be not alone. 

So shall I have thee most when thou art gone, 

When speech nor glance nor motion break the free, 

Deep-moving converse that I hold with thee. 



84 THE BLIND MAN AT THE WINDOW 



II 

When I am grieved that you are gone away, 
And I shall not see you for many a week, 
Not look into your eyes nor hear you speak, 
I bend my thoughts to our next meeting-day. 
Friends to be friends must have their Hves keep pace, 
And both must move or both must sit them still, 
Else comes a time when effort and forced will 
Must strain to keep old ties and old friend's-place. 
So shall we fight each one his separate fight, 
And so shall meet new words, new thoughts to tell, 
Shall feel a newer thrill of God when hand 
To hand we clasp, and see our stature's height 
Increased some cubits, and our nostrils swell. 
Stirred with the keen air of a higher land. 

Ill 

In case I shall not see you once again 

In the diverging courses of this world, 

Where men, once met, forget, or straight are whirled 

In widening circles far, to slack my pain 

I have a vision of the life to come. 

When they that have sought much, say failed, but sought. 

Risked many fields and lost or won, but fought, 

Shall leave their striving off and turn them home 

To God, then all the mighty dead shall see 

How we have striven well, shall watch us rise 

Up through the realm of sleep and death that seemed 

Once to be our life, and there shall we 

Hold speech again, and find in those large skies 

The heaven that the ancient prophet dreamed. 



DEC 17 1906 



